Top Five Perfectly Normal Things That I Refuse To Do

One great thing about getting older is that you can just refuse to do things.

It is an interesting power that you first wield as infant and small child, lose throughout much of your childhood and then slowly regain as you get older.

When you were a baby or an infant, if you didn’t want to sit somewhere or eat something, you just yelled and cried until someone picked you up or brought you something different to eat or drink. Sometimes they even changed your clothes and/or your diapers, all because you expressed that you were unhappy and didn’t like something.

That rarely happens for me now.

As you become a child, though, you have to do what your parents say, go to places you don’t want to visit, wait around for adults who are talking and basically have no power to drive, spend money or do much of anything on your own.

As an adult, this slowly changes and the older you get, the more power you suddenly have. This is partially because you don’t care what people think and partially because there are times when no one cares what you do anyway.

I still have to do plenty of things I don’t generally want to do such as paying bills, going to work and staying at work after I arrive there in the morning, but there are also plenty of daily items that I just refuse to do. With that in mind, here are the Top 5 Perfectly Normal Things That I Refuse To Do.

First, here are a few honorable mentions:

Jumping into a swimming pool – I am not a huge fan of swimming, but it can be fun. At the same time, though, I don’t want to jump into a pool. I don’t think anything is going to happen to me, but I don’t like jumping in so I refuse. It may not be cool to sit on the side and then get in or to climb in on the ladder, but I really don’t care. I’m too old to worry about if the way I get into a pool is cool or not. I don’t jump much in life these days, so why should I jump into a pool?

Making banana bread – Adults everywhere seem to want to make bread out of fruits and other items that are going bad. Got some bad bananas, it’s a super time to make banana bread! It’s the same thing with zucchini bread, pumpkin bread and other similar items. These are all fine breads (except that I hate bananas), but I have no interest in making them and I don’t ever want to save bananas or other rotting fruits or vegetables so that I can turn them into bread. I will, however, eat pumpkin bread, zucchini bread, cranberry bread and other breads that other people make.

Eating vegetables I don’t like – I am old enough to now just say, “I don’t have room on my plate,” or “I am not hungry,” or “I am on that new non-brussel sprout diet” and I don’t worry about it. I’m an adult, so I don’t eat foods I don’t want to eat. I may start telling people “I am saving the spinach on my plate to make spinach bread.”

5. Dancing by doing more than just slowly moving my legs back and forth – I have tried to dance in the past and failed. I will try to dance with my wife, but I am just not good at it and not comfortable at it. Others move beautifully with the music and I admire them for that, but I will just slowly sway back and forth and attempt to move my arms every once in a while.

4.Taking a cold shower – I tried to take one this summer to take care of some poison ivy, but after sticking my leg in the shower, I decided I would rather have the poison ivy rash. I don’t know how anyone can stand a cold shower, an ice bath or anything involving very cold water. I won’t do it. I definitely won’t jump into a cold shower.

3. Writing columns that aren’t just my own opinions on pointless topics – What else am I going to write about? Someone else’s opinions on pointless topics? How would that work? I am sticking to hard-hitting topics such as “Is A Toilet Considered a Chair?” and “The Top 5 Items That I Constantly Lie About For No Good Reason,” both coming soon!

2. Using an umbrella – I don’t like them. They just run into people, you end up pouring water on yourself or someone else, or someone else will want to share your umbrella and walk super close to you. Umbrellas are fine for others, but I would rather wear a hoodie or just get wet.

1. Drinking cough medicine – I know it is supposed to help me, but the taste and smell of it is awful. I forced it down when I was a child, but now as an adult I am simply not going to drink cough syrup. If there are no pills I can take, I would rather cough and feel terrible than have a spoonful of cough medicine. In fact, I am going to take all of the cough medicine we have in the house and either dump it down the drain or give it to some of my friends who will use it to make some tasty cough medicine bread.

What perfectly normal things do you refuse to do? Feel free to comment below. Thanks.

I refuse to take selfies; they’re too egotistical. I refuse to eat food I don’t like. I refuse having someone else mow our yard. I refuse to buy things I don’t need. I refuse to like Ohio State University even though I’m a native.

Too funny! I will not share this with my engineering husband. Over 40 years ago, I named his kind of dancing (the one described in #5) the engineer dance…I thought it was cruel to name it the Geek dance….where your feet never leave the floor and your body just sways back and forth. Watch the next time you go to a family wedding and it’s expected that all married couples dance….most of my family’s highly educated males do the engineer dance.

I will absolutely not climb on a ladder. Whatever it is we need to get down, can stay there forever – or until someone who climbs on a ladder comes and gets it.
I refuse to stop loving Playmobil. I buy them for my niece and nephew, so I can play with them.
I don’t jump into pools or the sea either. Never have. Never will.
And, of course, I never wear flowery dresses when I’m not in a flowery mood.

I don’t drink alcohol when I don’t want to. That’s of course not something that happens when you’re a kid, but when you’re younger you let yourself get pushed into things because of peer pressure. As I get older I don’t care about what others think I should be doing anymore. There are definitely positive sides to getting older.

Haha! You had me chuckling out loud. Very good points too… as my daughter [16 months] still runs the show and wields her power in so many ways. I refuse to balance my checkbook… I always have plans about doing that, and you know what! It’s not going to happen.

How old are your little[s] now? Does it get easier as they get older? She’s so damn cute… and I struggle walking the tightrope between wanting her to know and own her power/wanting her to just cooperate with me…for once…for the love of God!

The little ones are not so little anymore here. It does get easier. The problems certainly change, but it does get easier to clean, do things around the house and do more things in your life. 16 months is fun and later in life you will look back on this time, smile and wish she was that little again, but it is tough, too.

It’s such a double edged sword, isn’t it? Trying to soak yourself to saturation, cherishing each moment; while having human feelings and wishing for a bit of alone time or being annoyed you don’t have it. I already look back on the pictures of our first year together and think wow, where did the time go? How sweet and in love we looked. We will never be as physically close as we were then, yet our bond reaches new depths every day. I’m having a bit of a sentimental moment here, as she’s sleeping now; having major separation anxiety while also asserting her independence majorly! She’s started saying NO to everything, even nursing for the first time ever today… she still fell asleep nursing and looked like the sweetest little angel I’ve ever seen. whew, parenting is wild!

It took me a long, long time to get to this point, but I absolutely, positively refuse to work for someone who doesn’t treat me with respect. Been there, done that, ain’t doing it no more.

On a lighter note, I am no longer wiling to bake anything that requires yeast or a rolling pin. If I can’t mix it and immediately plop it into a baking pan or onto a cookie sheet, it’s not getting made. (Retirement can be a learning experience.)

I do not share your feelings on these particular topics, but I appreciate your sentiment and your humor. I thought the spinach bread quip was fantastic.
I refuse to help people move house, change diapers on anyone else’s child, and attend any loud, live music events within venues intended for eating.